The Cards Have Been Dealt
by Kallypso Rama
Summary: Warning: Movie Spoiler In Description  Serenity's crew have set off with the recent memory of breaking down the Planetary Alliance-or has it really been that recent? Read only if versed in the show's and the movie's plot. Progressive mature content.


**Okay, please grant me as a first time user of this site, that I may not know all the ins and outs of this hobby-and that since I haven't written in awhile; I may be a bit shaky at this. However, I really hope you do enjoy my work, and if so (or not, I like constructive criticism) please comment with remarks with what you enjoyed and what you may want to see more of. I'll try to be accommodating; however-as a writer-it's my job to pick and choose suggestions… if I take any, hahaha. Thanks for reading!**

**I've also decided to call my chapters "Bits" instead, to get into the rhythm of the story-so don't worry about the titling. I'll be sure to let you know with *'s in case I start any more unrecognizable phrasing such as that.**

Bit One: Forgetting

A veracious and violent thrum drowned the eardrums of the crew, a few shakes and odd twists adding to their disoriented condition. Everyone on the ship shared a similar wide-eyed internal panic, every mind screaming through their faces the same words Jayne would gutturally spit at the captain.

"WHAT THE FUCK, MAL? I THOUGHT YOU SAID WE WERE IN THE CLEAR!"

Jayne's words, ejected with dramatic spittle, shot towards a man hunched over the controls, furiously pounding on buttons which didn't seem to do his bidding.

"Jayne, I've got this. Go cuddle with Vera if this is all the help you have to offer." Blue-Grey eyes, though faced away from one of his subordinates, betrayed the terror his voice lacked. There was a certain resignation in his voice, and Jayne feared that Mal mentioning his beloved gun Vera meant a little more than to back off.

Orange-capped and mouth wide open to retort some obscenely obvious fact- and angry the captain had already lost faith with the ship-Jayne then lost his footing in a sudden violent shudder. All the other crewmates sprawled in midair at that very exact moment-except for of course River, who still could vaguely predict near future events. Her brother, Simon Tam, marveled his sister's gracefully executed back flip in avoiding the same neck injury he was currently suffering from after competing his fall. He also slightly cursed her ability for it, but only because of the pain. For all the trouble, he knew always that River was worth it, and he also barely doubted (if at all) any of her intentions-whether compromising to others or no. That always gave him a look of brotherly affection every time he gazed anywhere in River's vicinity-or anytime he ever discussed his sibling with others. As he lay there eyeing her reaction, River looked upwards from her half-crouched position, as if pinpointing the area in which the source of the problem laid, big dark eyes steady and swarming mysteriously with incomprehensible thoughts. Simon constantly wondered what was going on in that brilliant mind of hers-and knowing that it might have something in part to do with what the Planetary Alliance put in her head. Recently he had gotten to know a lot of what they subjected her with-but he was sure that wasn't all what they had done to her.

"River," Simon whispered, voice cracking. "Go to the bridge, help Mal."

River, after a moment's pause looked back to her brother-she was usually peculiar like that, often in deep thought but still acutely aware of her surroundings-and gave him a far off stare. "The ship will right herself. But we have to get to the nearest planet-otherwise, we will all die." She turned in the direction of the bridge, continuing her thought off a beat, "We'll be dead in space."

Simon shivered, but accepted River's blunt proclamation. She was always right-uncannily so, even though sometimes her most direct pronouncements might be not what the crew exactly or generally expected. "Go tell Mal-he needs to know."

River nodded and immediately dashed out, and Simon prayed the dire part of River's prediction wouldn't come to pass.

Meanwhile…

Kaylee, waiting in Simon's quarters for him to suddenly find her under the covers, was lifted off the bed about a foot before landing back on it again-startled beyond comprehension. "What in darn tar nation is wrong now?" she whined, regretting not keeping some sort of clothes on. The ship had again proved that there was hardly a convenient time to surprise her long time crush, now boyfriend-and she knew better than to put faith in its recently worsening condition, seemingly fixed not more than six or seven hours before. It was getting bad-and she had only hoped that the last repair out of the numerous recent ones she had made would be the last one indeed. This now meant either they would make it only a little farther, or have a find a planet to land on promptly-hopefully one already inhabited, and more so one not in the clutches of the Alliance.

The blaring hum and vibration sounding all around her increased her annoyance-not to mention the cool touch on the hard floor as she gingerly slid out her toes and then her feet of the covers. It wasn't a sound anything like she had heard her ship make before and it mounted her worry on top of the fact the ship seemed to be breaking down. Only she and Mal knew the full situation concerning the ship, as to not alarm everyone else. Though they were out of direct harm's way and had much less on their plates to worry over, everyone was exhausted with dealing with much more bad news. Besides, everyone was aware of the fact that the ship was hardly in a pristine condition and in top shape-even when they hadn't had to make the repairs due to the Reavers-they didn't need to find out the ship had been irreversibly damaged, she and Mal were only finding this out. If they couldn't make enough repairs to last them to their next ultimate destination-they would tell the crew as soon as they found out. Quickly grabbing her underwear, she threw on her robe she had previously hid her clothed state in while making her way to Simon's bed from her quarters. First she would go and put on her overalls, and then she'd get to work. Kaylee scrabbled toward the engine room.

Zoe, after dealing with her midair collision with a wall and dusting herself off afterwards, pounded her boots toward the command center. Her eyes were bloodshot from finding yet another forgotten photo of herself and Wash, her late husband. She had now gotten beyond the point of needing a suicide watch just beyond the door. There was always someone nearby still-in case anything came up out of the ordinary. She shoved past Inara who had thought she had heard Zoe's muffled moans when passing by her quarters. Seeing the blotches on her face proved Inara's initial guess to be true-but that didn't keep Zoe from walking away from her and heading towards Mal, ready to throw herself into duty, though she had a feeling yet again she wouldn't be needed. Probably it was the ship acting up again-but she could have sworn things had been fixed for good last time. She hoped secretly there was some enemy ship waiting out there-better if it was the Alliance so she could suit up and man Serenity's turret, though they had been already greatly weakened thanks to Mr. Universe's transmitter blasting the truth about the Alliance. She didn't hear Inara calling after her, or struggling to keep up with her fast pace-but Inara quickly guessed Zoe's plan of action and followed her to the bridge without trying to stop or grab her attention again.

As Zoe entered the bridge with Inara in tow, Mal stood completely in front of River with an expression of shock. Jayne looked askance at the two with a bandaged forehead, he himself looking slightly dunce-like and a very irritated. When noticing Zoe's entrance, he straightened slightly and grumbled something along the lines that River was causing trouble again and how the captain wouldn't let him help. However Zoe hardly heard Jayne's complaints and made her way toward Mal and River.

"What's the status, Captain?" she inquired, shoulders rolled back and a small semblance of her old self shinning through. It was reassuring to see that she had been able to retrieve some of her composure again, if not completely. She'd come a long way.

Mal continued staring at River in a state of complexion. Did he really just hear his worst fears about the ship realized? This wasn't how he wanted to break it to the crew-and the ship hadn't seemed so run down until this latest upset. Mal thought he had more time-but he guessed that wasn't the case anymore. "Shitfuck, is that all you have to tell me? Bad news? There's nothing else? Can't there be anything good?"

"Captain, what's going on?" Zoe insisted, her face starting to show worry. Mal wasn't acting right. Was he keeping something from her and the rest of the crew? Did he think they couldn't handle it? They'd been through a lot-that was true. But Zoe was Mal's confidant. She at least had to know what the hell was going wrong-because this undeniably was not a good situation they were in, and maybe that was even an understatement. She had to know, now. "Is there something you'd like to tell me?"

"If there was only a planet, or a space dock… even another ship, I don't care at the moment! I can't get anything to even fucking work right now!" He screwed his face and licked at the control panels. This startled everyone, mostly because they had no idea what the problem was-but it seemed very critical that they get help.

River stepped towards the captain, her expression unchanged. "There's a planet not too far off actually, it says so on the solar radar. We're in charted territory anyways."

There was an acute silence, and it became hostile as Mal started hunching his shoulders. "How can that be? We've been in the Wastes headed away, and keeping away, from the charted zones-we're not anywhere near civilization!"

River's stance continued to remain unrelenting to Mal's accusations. The captain knew River probably wasn't lying; she had saved their lives back at Mr. Universe's planet, and everything she said now seemed to make sense. He walked past her to look at the screen showing the supposed proof of River's findings. What she said was true-he knew he shouldn't be surprised, but what were they doing here? They were supposed to be waiting out the Alliance's small and secret retaliations' (there were obviously some who weren't following their commanders orders and pursuing them anyways), especially with the ship being in the condition Mal had yet inform the rest of the crew about. There was more to the ship's malfunctioning state than he had even guessed before. "Well, it looks like we're saved after all."

Zoe began crossing her arms, suddenly hurt that Mal had yet to say anything to her. She had been in a bad place before-but did he seriously think that she wasn't capable of her job anymore? "Captain," she said, glancing at everyone on the deck and returning her gaze back to him. "Can we step outside and talk about this?"

Mal finally looked to Zoe, showing sympathy and regret for not saying something sooner. The small roller coaster of events had come all at once, he knew better than to let them overwhelm him so much that he wouldn't say anything to Zoe. He hadn't meant to offend his Second in Command, they shared more history than anyone else on this ship-but things had changed recently, and for some odd reason he had a hard time getting back into the swing of things. Even that seemed odd to him, and he knew everybody thought the same thing too; they had made no attempts to conceal their opinions the past few days. What's more, everyone-not just him, seemed to have a hard time doing the same well.

"No, I should be saying this to everyone. Kaylee and I thought it best to keep things quiet until we knew more about what was happening, but things seemed to have escalated faster than we anticipated-and we only just found out anyways. There's no reason to make things more of a problem if we don't know what happening completely or if we don't have some sort of plan as to how to combat it." He sighed deeply, as if airing something of great weight with everyone in the cabin. "Serenity, she's giving out. I hate to say it, but we may end up needing to find another ship. It feels wrong to say it, but apparently she took more of a beating than we knew-and she's an old bird anyways. I didn't want to say anything because I myself didn't want it to be true. This beauty is my life. I thought she had a little more left in her-but I guess that's not the case." He paused, as if still grappling with the words he was uttering. "If any of you decide that you want to leave when we get on planet, you may want to start packing now. I know it's not going to be the same without our old girl-but it's also been pretty rough as of late, and I understand."

Everyone's glances went downward, except for Zoe and River's, whose eyes remained on their captain. Suddenly everyone knew the reason why Mal had been acting strangely, they all knew the ship was practically his child-they themselves had come to call it home and grew great respect for it too. But this was Mal's dream, and it was dying. The crew understood his feelings too. They were afraid to let Serenity go as well.

"River was just saying to me as you walked in Zoe, that we were in danger of stopping completely. That's why I panicked, here I was thinking we were still in the Wastes and we were about to be dead in the water, and the old girl was going to give up completely. But, I guess it turns out there's a planet nearby." Mal added, unable to keep his eyes from the controls and the walls of his ship.

"There's also this too Mal-"River piped. "The ship's computer has been messed up."

"I know River, that's why I've been trying to get the thrumming to stop. Speaking of which, Kaylee must have fixed it, it's been quiet for awhile now-I just noticed it now myself."

This made everyone look up simultaneously. It was true, there was the regular steady hum of the engine working properly, and the vibration was completely non-existent.

"No, Mal, that's not what I meant. Everything's working fine now. But here's something that isn't right. But I didn't think anyone or anything could mess it up."

"Well, everything seems to be working just fine now," Mal replied, only half listening. "I'm not getting any readings of the ship straining or it having done so. That's weird-that really wasn't something the computer should have overlooked. It should've said something about violent tremors, even if it isn't able to locate the problem-which it still should."

"It's still wrong."

A chill went up Mal's spine. Things were getting weirder by the minute, and he didn't like it in the slightest. Plus he didn't like the way River said what she did. She was starting to sound cryptic.

"What's still wrong?"

River didn't say anything, she just stared at the captain like she had earlier when he voiced his fears about the ship.

"Say it! What's wrong with her now?"

"It might not be though-but I don't think even I get that side-tracked with-"

"With what River? Sidetracked with what?" Mal was growing more unnerved by the second now.

"Look, I don't think you still should that kept that information from us." Jayne interrupted. "That wasn't cool."

"Shut UP Jayne! I'm not talking to you, I'm trying to get River to tell me what's wrong with the ship!" Spat Mal.

"Jayne, he just said he been trying to figure out what the source of the problem is-I don't think he's keeping anything from us." Zoe tried explaining to Jayne.

"I don't fucking care! Besides, I still don't trust River, she's a bomb waiting to explode anytime-and things have only gotten harder with her and Simon taking refuge on our ship!" Jayne bellowed back, then whipped his head and pointed towards River. "I bet She caused this!"

"Jayne, you'd better hold your tongue because I'm in no mood to let you wag it this incessantly on my deck. If you don't like it, then you can leave." Mal growled.

"You know I'm right though! Don't you remember at the bar? And then with-"

"We know what happened, we were there stupid." Zoe snapped. "I probably remember better than any one of you-and River saved our lives, end of story. Don't pretend you weren't impressed, or relieved. Even thankful."

Jayne tucked his head a little, remembering what went on that night and realizing Zoe was right-she may have had more reason to remember it better than anyone else-though it was all firmly implanted vividly in everyone's mind. It was so intense it almost came like pictures in his head, and flashing rapidly from scene to scene. It was a terrible time-but they all had gotten through it.

Mal sighed a bit and returned to ask River again what she had meant. He couldn't place it, but things weren't right, and no matter anyone's doubts about River-she probably had the key to understanding this whole mess. "Why does the ship keep saying things are running normally-but it keeps shaking and we keep having to make repairs to keep her going?"

"I don't know Mal. But it's not right." River replied calmly.

Once again, Mal had to try to keep his anger in check, but it became increasingly hard when River wasn't giving him a straight answer. "What isn't right, River?"

"The date."

Now Mal was starting to get exasperated. "What about the date? What's wrong with it?"

"It's just, wrong. It can't be, but it is."

Zoe put a hand on Mal's shoulder to keep him from yelling. She turned to River and began speaking for Mal, understanding what he wanted. "Why is it wrong River? Is it off? How far off?"

"It's like-someone fast forwarded it. But that's impossible, no one can feed the time to the computer, it analyzes the data and configures what the date itself. Its readings come from the outside, it measures it-there's no way anyone could alter it. Maybe it's wrong."

"How far River? What does it say?" Zoe asked, becoming perplexed. River took naturally to learning, but sometimes she knew stuff that even none of them knew-even about the ship, and they had manned it long before she had ever come aboard. This was something even she didn't remember-though she'd probably learned it once. Duties and more pressing matters might have made her forget that information. But that stuff was vital to know, why hadn't she remembered that as River was saying it?

River looked at the captain. "Do you really want to know Mal?"

Mal looked at River, finally understanding that she wasn't trying to be cryptic-she didn't want to tell him. She was scared, and that was a scary thought. River wasn't scared very often-even when all people should be. "Yes River, we want to know. How far?"

River wasted no time in answering now. "Three years, 22 days, 17 hours, 57 minutes and 8 seconds-Captain."


End file.
